LUDINGTON, MI – Paul T. Butterfield had something he needed to say to his son, Michigan State Police Trooper Paul Kenyon Butterfield II, as the younger man lay in a Traverse City operating room.

It was late the night of Monday, Sept. 9, 2013. The elder Butterfield, himself a retired state trooper, had ridden hours with a friend from his Frankenmuth home to Munson Medical Center, knowing only that his 43-year-old son had been shot in the head while on duty but was alive.

“I wanted to see him. In the operating room, they were keeping him alive (on a machine). It was the worst day of my life when I saw him like that.”

But Butterfield did what he had to do.

He repeated what he’d told his son in a phone call the previous Thursday. “My birthday was just four days before that,” Butterfield said.

“I got to talk to him, told him I loved him.” And again in the operating room, “I told him that night. I’m hoping he heard me.”

Butterfield plans to attend parts of the pending trial of the man charged with killing his son -- probably the lawyers’ opening statements and the announcement of the verdict -- but not most of it. “I don’t want to sit through the trial and hear, I guess, the blood and guts of it, the shooting aspect,” he said.

“I know too much already.”

A Mason County jury trial for Eric John Knysz, 20, of Luther, is scheduled to start with jury selection on Tuesday, Feb. 18, in Ludington. The trial before 51st Circuit Judge Richard I. Cooper is scheduled to run nine days, concluding Feb. 28.

In Mason County, Knysz is charged with murder of a peace officer, which carries a sentence of life in prison without possibility of parole; felony firearm, a consecutive two-year felony; and carrying concealed weapons and motor vehicle theft, both normally five-year felonies. He is charged as a second-time habitual offender based on a 2008 Lake County conviction of first-degree home invasion, which could boost the maximum sentence for the last two counts to 7½ years.

Mason County Prosecutor Paul Spaniola and Knysz’s court-appointed lawyer, David Glancy, had little to say as the trial neared.

Spaniola had no comment. Glancy on Feb. 11 said only “As of right now, it’s proceeding to trial. There have been no plea offers made available to my client.” He declined to say whether he would present any defense witnesses.

MLive Muskegon Chronicle will cover the trial, with live updates in the comments section of stories online.

Knysz also faces separate felony charges in Manistee County: receiving and concealing stolen firearms, carrying concealed weapons, car theft, assault with a dangerous weapon and felony firearm. No trial date has been set in that county, according to a circuit court staffer Feb. 13.

Knysz has allegedly admitted shooting Paul K. Butterfield II in the head after the trooper pulled over Knysz and his wife, Sarah Renee Knysz, in a traffic stop around 6:20 p.m. Sept. 9 on Custer Road in rural Mason County, according to a Manistee County arrest-warrant affidavit. Knysz allegedly admitted using a .357 Colt Python handgun he had stolen from his father.

Sarah Knysz pleaded guilty as charged to accessory after the fact to a felony and car theft. Cooper sentenced her Dec. 10 to prison for two to five years for the accessory count and a concurrent 11 months for car theft. A Manistee County case of car theft was dropped.

As part of her plea agreement, Sarah Knysz agreed to testify against her husband. At her guilty plea Nov. 5, she told the judge that the couple were in his father's, John Knysz’s, pickup truck, returning to Irons where the father lived, after selling some guns in Ludington that Eric had allegedly stolen from his father. Some guns were still in the car.

At about 6:20 p.m., Butterfield pulled them over. The 43-year-old trooper reportedly walked to the driver’s window and started to say something like “How’s it going?” Eric shot him before he could finish, Sarah testified. The trooper fell in the road, and they left.

At 6:23 p.m., a passing motorist called 911 to report finding Butterfield on the ground. Butterfield was airlifted to Munson Medical Center.

Based on information Butterfield had relayed to dispatch about the vehicle he stopped, police began to seek Eric Knysz as the suspect. Police located the couple at a gas station and store in Manistee County, by this time with an allegedly stolen car, at approximately 8:25 p.m. Eric Knysz allegedly pulled a gun when confronted by police and was shot in the leg.

Eric Knysz’s mother, Tammi Lynne Spofford, has also been charged in Mason County with accessory after the fact to a felony and car theft. She’s accused of knowingly helping the couple escape after the shooting by driving the pickup truck back to her ex-husband after the Knyszes allegedly stole a car near Walhalla.

“I just hope justice is served with this trial,” Paul T. Butterfield said.

“He’s devastated our lives, there’s no doubt about it. I was diagnosed with leukemia July 5th. I thought that was the worst thing that happened to me in my whole life. Then Paul was killed.

“Leukemia doesn’t even hold a candle to his death,” Butterfield said.

“It gets very emotional to me. Sometimes I just cry for no reason. ... You’re not supposed to lose your child before you. It’s just been heartache. I’d like to get over it, but I don’t see how I ever can. I feel so bad.”

Butterfield first heard about the shooting when one of his state police friends on his bowling team, a dog handler from the Bridgeport post, rang his doorbell and said “Paul’s been shot.”

The friend gave him a ride – at first starting toward Grand Rapids, where they thought Paul had been taken, then turning toward Traverse City after 15 or 20 miles when they learned he was at Munson.

Neither man knew the younger Butterfield was dying until they got to the hospital. “Everything we heard, he was holding his own,” Butterfield said. “I wasn’t really expecting anything as tragic as it was.”

The father is left with fond memories of his only child, whose 44th birthday would have been Sunday, Feb. 16.

“He never gave us any trouble at all,” Butterfield said. “He was an athlete for one thing. He played baseball, he wrestled and, of course, running was his forte.”

In Paul K. Butterfield II’s youth, running was a passion. He was a 1988 graduate of Bridgeport High School, where he was active in track and cross-country running, still holding several school records and winning the state Class A cross-country meet.

After graduation, Butterfield continued with his studies and with running at the University of Tennessee. He competed worldwide, running in the TAC Junior Pan Am games in Argentina. He won the Frankenmuth Volkslauffe (People’s Race) in 1989. In 1990, he became a member of the SEC Cross Country Championship team.

Butterfield enlisted in the U.S. Army, serving with the 25th Infantry Division in Hawaii, where he was the coach for the division’s track and cross-country team. His running career took him across the United States and to foreign countries. For several months while in the Army, he was deployed to Haiti.

After the Army, he was talking about a possible career in the FBI or U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, according to his father. The elder Butterfield persuaded him to talk to a Michigan State Police recruiter, pointing out that a federal job could take him anywhere in the country, far from home.

“The more he had contact with the department, the more he started to like it,” Butterfield said. His son joined the state police in 1999, about two years after the father’s retirement following a career in the Bridgeport, Saginaw, Pontiac and Flint areas.

The younger Butterfield was assigned to the Manistee post after graduating from trooper recruit school, then transferred in October 2011 to the Hart post. He lived in the Manistee area and, at the time of his death, was engaged to Jennifer Sielski.

An avid animal lover, he had a dog and seven cats, all of whose names were listed in his obituary. One cat, Scamper, died of cancer Sept. 10 and was buried with him.

Besides his father, the trooper was survived by his stepmother, Paul T. Butterfield’s wife, Patricia Butterfield. His mother, Dawn Butterfield, died in 2009.

Living about a three hours’ drive apart, father and son didn’t see each other as often as they would have liked. But they talked often, speaking on the phone at least weekly, Paul T. Butterfield said.

“We always kept in touch with each other,” he said. “I have a text message from him ... I’ll save it forever.”

Since Sept. 9, he’s learned how many people his son touched.

“He was just a good person,” Butterfield said. “I didn’t even realize how well he was liked and how well he was respected until I’ve talked to so many people who’ve had occasions to deal with him and be around him. ... We’ve got thousands of cards, just telling us how Paul touched their lives.

“He loved his job. He’d help anybody. He was just a good, good kid.

“I just miss him so much.”

John
S. Hausman covers courts, prisons, the environment and local government for
MLive Muskegon Chronicle. Email him at jhausman@mlive.com and follow
him on Twitter.